The Black-Tail Deer 173 



with hounds tend to bring out the best and manli- 

 est qualities in the men who follow them, and they 

 should be encouraged in every way. Long after 

 the rifleman, as well as the game he hunts, shall 

 have vanished from the plains, the cattle country 

 w r ill afford fine sport in coursing hares; and both 

 wolves and deer could be followed and killed with 

 packs of properly trained hounds, and such sport 

 would be even more exciting than still-hunting 

 with the rifle. It is on the great plains lying west 

 of the Missouri that riding to hounds will in the 

 end receive its fullest development as a national 

 pastime. 



But at present, for the reasons already stated, it 

 is almost unknown in the cattle country; and the 

 ranchman who loves sport must try still-hunting 

 and by still-hunting is meant pretty much every kind 

 of chase where a single man, unaided by a dog, and 

 almost always on foot, outgenerals a deer and kills 

 it with the rifle. To do this successfully, unless 

 deer are very plenty and tame, implies a certain 

 knowledge of the country, and a good knowledge of 

 the habits of the game. The hunter must keep a 

 sharp lookout for deer sign ; for, though a man soon 

 gets to have a general knowledge of the kind of 

 places in which deer are likely to be, yet he will 

 also find that they are either very capricious, or else 

 that no man has more than a partial understanding 

 of their tastes and likings, for many spots apparently 

 just suited to them will be almost uninhabited, while 

 in others they will be found where it would hardly 



